


Burn

by locrianrose



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: AU, F/M, RvB Angst War, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 16:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7446730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/locrianrose/pseuds/locrianrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this universe, Carolina burns.</p>
<p>From the moment Sigma is implanted, there's something different in her. She isn’t with them when York leaves them all, and it hurts her more than she’d ever care to admit that he’s left her behind, that everything that he’d said was a lie and that he’s betrayed them all, but Sigma whispers the truth in her ear, tells her that York could have been right, that there are things that aren’t right here in the program, that she has been lied to.</p>
<p>(Carolina as the Meta AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn

 They’re on the highway, and Maine manages to move a second before the bullets come, and they along with York escape unharmed, but the universe still manages to claim one of their number as its price. North isn’t where he should be, moving a moment too late and he’s hit. Theta’s hysterical on the journey back, and none of them are speaking, and Carolina knows that she’s done something wrong chasing after Tex and the package like she had, but she can’t bring herself to feel guilt for that, and instead a bone deep shame spreads that controls and possesses her because she wasn’t fast enough wasn’t strong enough.

She doesn’t even have time to confirm if North is going to make it out the same or not before she’s informed that she’s up for AI implantation.  

In this universe, Carolina burns.

From the moment Sigma is implanted, there's something different in her. She isn’t with them when York leaves them all, and it hurts her more than she’d ever care to admit that he’s left her behind, that everything that he’d said was a lie and that he’s betrayed them all, but Sigma whispers the truth in her ear, tells her that York could have been right, that there are things that aren’t right here in the program, that she has been lied to. The thought that she might have been able to stop him if she’d been there sinks in her gut and stays there, and Sigma does little to comfort her.

(North can’t speak. Why North? Is it because York had seemed to trust him? Is it her fault, or could she never have stopped it?)

 Carolina is sick with guilt, and Sigma presents a plan in her mind when they’re on their way to retrieve what he took with him. York doesn’t need to die, and Sigma hints at a greater secret. She doesn’t believe him, but she knows that she needs him, needs the AI to help her to reach what she needs to in order to try to bring back York alive. When they get back, she’ll report what he’s told her, and then things will be explained.

It doesn’t go that way.

York dies.

He dies, and it hurts her more than she ever could have imagined it would, because there’s another man who’s attempting to get him to leave and she tries to convince him to return with her, to come back so she can fix this, but Tex is there and she doubts that he could’ve survived that. She’d never say that Sigma is pleased, but the feeling in her mind from him when she turns to him on the flight back, desperate and broken is closer to satisfaction than she’d like to admit. Something in him rubs at the raw edges in her mind of what’s taken place, and she feels that she’s failed even more than before.

He tells her that she should be the best, that she should be the one who’s better than all of them because Tex isn’t one of them. Carolina refuses to consider what Tex might be, but she listens to Sigma’s words and his insistence that he would not lie to her, and that he needs her help.

There are two more AI now, Eta and Iota, and York and Delta are gone and Sigma asks her to think about where those AI would have come from, or just how the Director could have gotten them, or how they were made, and she sees what he is showing her, and she puts her fist through a mirror in the locker room.

Carolina wants to feel _whole._

North is distant, South is furious about her lack of an AI and dropping position on the leaderboard. Connecticut is with Wash, and Carolina has never truly trusted any of them with her secrets but York, and he’s gone now.

Maine comes to her, and she wants to laugh. He cares, in his own way. He's never talked much. This isn’t anything different. He understands her, the need she has to be the best and to improve, and she thinks that in some way or form, he might even pity that part of her. He tries to provide solidarity. An offer to train with her. Sigma reminds her that she will never find what she desires while she is here, and she rejects it and him.

Something is broken here.

Eta and Iota fall to Wash. Carolina observes, and her anger builds.  Wash tries to talk to her before he goes in for surgery, and she refuses, because Sigma reminds her of what he's receiving, fragments of a broken whole, and this time, she believes him. When he wakes up after, she's there, her own curiosity forcing her to convince him to try to fight Tex, using her position to convince him to fight her.

When he's in the med bay, trapped in his own mind by the mention of a dead woman's name and the two AI who’ve joined with him, Carolina knows who Tex is, and it burns her. She does not visit him, not at North's urging, not for anything. Maine ignores her in turn. Connecticut is angry, confronts her, and Carolina threatens to report her behavior till she stops.

Sigma is with her, though all of this, her only comfort and companion. Tex is placed at the head of missions above her, and then, as suddenly as she appeared, she’s gone, Connecticut having disappeared with her. Carolina takes this as a victory. Sigma takes it as temporary.

Another AI is announced. South preens when she’s told that she’ll be the one getting it. Carolina is later informed by North of what had happened when South woke, perhaps in an attempt to remind her that she’d once cared  for her team. South had screamed, and something had been wrong with Epsilon that had broken in her mind.

Sigma tells Carolina that they can’t allow this to go on for much longer, that she can’t allow the fragments of her team to be destroyed like this. _They think, together, that Epsilon would have been safer with them._

He reminds her that she is not whole, that he is not either and he makes her see him as an equal and the only one who can understand and she can’t do anything but agree, because this is wrong, all of it, and if before she’d only wanted to prove what she could do, now she sees that this is a false competition, one that she’ll never be able to win or conquer.

She is woken by sirens in what would have been the night, and the Director needs her now, requires her assistance. He tells her that she knows what needs to be done, that Texas has returned, and she and Sigma agree with him.

She knows what Texas is, and Sigma reminds her that she cannot fight her and win, and that they must wait, and so they do. It’s Washington who’s forced to stop Connecticut, then to try to take Texas down instead, grossly outmatched, and Carolina and Sigma wait. North runs, and they muse together what it must have taken him to leave South behind. (Epsilon. They’ll need to get him somehow, eventually.)

The ship falls, and they are ready. Sigma burns in her, and Carolina is guided by his hand to Wash, and for the first time since Sigma had been implanted he takes precedence in her mind, pushing himself to the forefront and she allows him to show her what to do, and before she can regain control of her mind Wash is gone, and Eta and Iota are clenched in her hand and they’ve been inserted into her AI slots and

something

is

gone

 and broken in an effort to be made whole

pushed to the side as two new voices join Sigma’s and Texas is there in the distance, and they turn to her and they do not care or know why reacts as she does and they do not know if she’s crying out for Washington or the part of her that recognizes Carolina as the one who should have been protected or stopped

but they know what they are

and they will be whole.

 

there are other fragements. they  will reclaim them.

 

north and theta are found and theta is terrified and alone and they take him into them and he’s no longer alone and they find another piece but they are still still not whole and it hurts them to be alone

the fragment of carolina that still exists is grateful for the enhancements that they gain as they go but she doesn’t surface from the confusion of the ai that run rampant in her mind

 

somehow someone finds what’s left of delta and they need him, need to find him so much and he was with york but he’s alone now and they need to find him

 

they find tex in the most anticlimactic way possible, unable to fight and turn against them and they feel that they are victorious and they then bring her back into the fold, along with omega and they are closer closer to being whole but they are still so far away and there are still pieces that are missing and gone and that hunger only grows

 

they need more power there isn’t enough alone and they don’t know where to get it

south is there and they are confused but they know that they need to stop her because she will tear them apart and somehow someone with her has delta and they need need him have to stop her

 there are simulation troopers and only south and they should be able to stop them but somehow they are hurt and it’s only by chance that they’re able to reclaim delta and he’s home and back where he needs to be and they’re closer closer

but they need the alpha need it so much and they don’t know how to get it and they need it more than anything else that there is

 

the simulation troopers and south keep stopping them. they are meta, and they are better than this but they listen and learn and they wait because they reason that south will show them where the alpha is and then they will be whole

 

and they follow them and it’s just south and a simulation trooper and they will not lose this battle for anything

 

but then he is there and is the alpha alpha alpha alpha alpha and they are still not whole and this can’t be

 

///

~~they are meta~~

~~they are~~

~~they were~~

~~she is ?~~

~~she was~~

She was Meta.

She was with them all, but now she is alone, so lonely but not strong enough to use what she knows that she needs  to use to win but she can’t and she doesn’t know why.

South is there, South who wasn’t strong enough, South who’d had Epsilon who they’d never ever been able to find no matter how hard they’d tried when they were still together.

She will find Epsilon, and she does now know what she will do when they find him, but she knows that she needs him to be whole because alone she is nothing, never strong enough, always failing. The simulation troopers, the same ones from before will be the ones that will show them, and she is no longer Carolina and even alone she is nothing but Meta and she will show no mercy.

 

They find York’s armor, and she feels nothing.

 

And South asks her to make a way to trap for Epsilon, tells her to do that, and so she does but she knows what this will allow her to do and what she will be able to do if she gets just one AI again, and she will be the Meta again, and they will be closer to whole.

 

It’s Tex in the end? And even as she is as the Meta, she is surprised because she knew the Tex that was a part of the Meta, but this one is her nonetheless and she will not listen to South if she tells her to give the AI over because Tex will give her what she needs and she will be whole.

The simulation troopers are there again? And this confuses her, but she will fight them like she has before and she will not, cannot lose this against them, because she is the Meta and she is better than them, stronger than all of them and with Tex she can do all of this but

They manage to

And then Tex i s g on e

And

She

Is

Falling

And everything is cold so cold that she doesn’t know what she can or should do because she is sinking and it is cold so cold so cold

And sh e cannot breath        e  .

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted on Tumblr by lotus063 as: AU where South gets Epsilon instead and she angsts around because Carolina is the Meta, North is handicapped because of York who takes the traitor role, and the fact she might put down her friend while teaming up with a bunch of idiots.
> 
> I strayed from that quite a bit, but I feel that something interesting did come out of it ultimately. I'm the worlds biggest sucker for Carolina angst, and the bit about Carolina as the Meta was what I really latched on to.


End file.
